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Approaches To Price Formation In Financialized Commodity Markets

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  • Sophie van Huellen

Abstract

A recent debate about the financialization of commodity markets has stimulated the development of new approaches to price formation which incorporate index traders as a new trader category. I survey these new approaches by retracing their emergence to traditional price formation models and show that they arise from a synthesis between commodity arbitrage pricing and behavioural pricing theories in the tradition of Keynesian inspired hedging pressure models. Based on these insights, I derive testable hypotheses and provide guidance for a growing literature that seeks to empirically evaluate the effects of index traders on price discovery in commodity futures markets.

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  • Sophie van Huellen, 2020. "Approaches To Price Formation In Financialized Commodity Markets," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 219-237, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jecsur:v:34:y:2020:i:1:p:219-237
    DOI: 10.1111/joes.12342
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    2. Bernhard Tröster & Ulrich Gunter, 2023. "The Financialization of Coffee, Cocoa and Cotton Value Chains: The Role of Physical Actors," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 54(6), pages 1550-1574, November.
    3. Valenti, Daniele & Bastianin, Andrea & Manera, Matteo, 2023. "A weekly structural VAR model of the US crude oil market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
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    5. Costas Lapavitsas & Aylin Soydan, 2020. "Financialisation in developing countries: Approaches, concepts, and metrics," Working Papers 240, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
    • Q02 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Commodity Market

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